Branding. It’s a loaded term tossed around in the marketing world, but carries with it some huge potential.

For small business owners, branding might seem like a waste of time, another box to check on the business building to-do list.

However, the opportunity presented by building a true blue, full-fledged, homerun of a brand is what separates the store brands from the Coca-Colas of business. Your business’ reputation is what really makes or breaks sales, and if your brand looks like it cost $10 to make in ClipArt, than that’s how you can expect people to perceive it.

Putting your brand to work is one of the quickest ways to get more bang for your buck when it comes to investing in your business. You can go out and buy the latest technology for the services you offer or launch a newly developed product. But getting the word out about these new developments is sure to be an uphill battle. You’re going to have to fight every day for new customers to not only know your name but also choose to trust your business. And with all the added noise of the digital age, and competition out there, you might be out of business before that ever happens.

The biggest advantage lies in the differentiation.

Turning the tables on the competition and creating a strong, united brand—communicated through every touch point of your marketing—will turn you from nameless nobody to reputable mainstay. The biggest advantage lies in the differentiation. Most small businesses have very poor, unmemorable branding, making it easy for the first smart business to instantly take charge of a highly contested market.

Almost every time a client flips the switch and rebrands on a large scale, their no name service all of the sudden becomes the fresh new kid on the block. People see the vehicles, recognize the flyers, visit the website, and ultimately become a buyer.

Thus begins the ripple effect, which leads to some pretty astounding metrics. Within a year’s time, we’ve seen some truly astounding business landmarks. Among the consumer-base, a new staple in the community is born. Internally, the company gets a more official and affirming identity. The change is validating, empowering, and overwhelmingly positive—and it all comes back to an initial upfront investment.

The change is validating, empowering, and overwhelmingly positive—and it all comes back to an initial upfront investment.

Your perception garners you superior favorability amongst loyal advocates and first-timers alike, so much so that well-branded businesses are enabled to adjust their prices, make more revenue, and drive their growth even further. It triggers a serious snowball effect that allows start-ups to become powerhouses and mom-and-pop shops to become multi-location companies. These businesses seem equipped to withstand the test of time, and because of that, consumers will see fit to treat them that way.

The content in this article originally appeared on Coatings World and WeWork.com. Coatings World provides articles and news items that provide information on technology and marketing in the paint industry. WeWork.com is a platform for those who love to be creative! They provide everything one needs to express their creativity and create work.

Many small business leaders don’t follow certain basic marketing tenets to drive enterprise success and I am no different. Here is my list of marketing musts for small business leaders of today:

Know Thy Market. While it takes time out of your schedule, it’s important to conduct research on your industry, market, direct competitors and consumers. The ideas and needs of your consumer base are always changing. You need to know why and how.

Know Thy Budget. Not everyone needs a jumbo jet, nor can everyone afford one. There are plenty of options when it comes to transportation. Your marketing is the same way. Establishing a budget is critical for effective marketing expectation and execution. A good estimate is roughly five percent of your sales to start.

Not a Business, but a Brand. As a company, your brand is one of your greatest assets. It communicates, differentiates, motivates, and establishes credibility. Think of your brand as a spokesperson for your company: highlighting your promises and propositions to the consumer. It needs to be on point.

Massive Attack. Too many times, small business owners passively react instead of proactively plan for business implications, competitors and consumers. It is more fruitful to formulate a plan of attack before making moves that cost time and money. Whatmedia channels will you leverage to connect with your consumer? Know before you start!

Strategically Speaking. What’s the master message of your brand? This single-minded idea should live throughout all advertising deliverables for an in-sync marketing message.

Staying Consistent. Present one strong united front to the market and your consumers. It will bolster brand awareness and drive brand recall. Ensure that all components of your advertising are consistent and cohesive so a story can be told.

Recording Results. Accountability is key, so remember to monitor and gauge the effectiveness of your budget and advertising campaign. By tracking leads via different media channels, you can identify those channels that give you the best ROI versus channels that need to be further optimized.

Keep It Fresh. By utilizing what you’ve learned from data tracking, you can change on a dime and make your budget really work. Proper measurement helps you discover how to better spend your budget, which channels to remove from the media plan, and which channels to try in the future.

Pay It Forward. Contributing to the professional community is a great way to gather respect and credibility from within your industry. Likewise, there’s always the chance that whoever you help may pay you back with some free press or plaudits. Pay it forward every chance you can and you’ll start seeing people advocate for you!

The contents in this article originally appeared on Small Business Digest, an informational website and magazine used to share important tips and techniques used by successful small business owners. The information published by Small Business Digest is researched and written to provide its’ audience with the knowledge they need to succeed.

A Q and A with Dan Antonelli, author of Building a Big Small Business Brand, to help educate sign designers.

What prompted you to write Building a Big Small Business Brand?
After specializing in working with small businesses for almost two decades, I realized that I kept seeing the same challenges they had about their brand. So while the first two books spoke more to designers about the mechanics of building logos, I wanted to focus this book on teaching businesses why their brand is so important, how to leverage a good brand to build their business, and how to work with a designer in building their brand.

At the same time, you gave sign people a look at how to educate their clients and sell this work. What key things can sign designers learn from it?
Certainly, a deeper understanding about their role, and why it’s so important. I think sometimes sign designers don’t place enough emphasis on branding in the work they produce for their clients, and many continue to view their products as commodities. Not every sign designer is going to be able to coordinate all the other elements of a small business marketing campaign, but there are many things they can control. By thinking about their work from a brand perspective, it elevates the value of what they deliver, and better frames the relationship with a client. Instead of being a vendor, you’re their partner. Instead of an expense, your services are an investment.

Selling this approach to design takes a different mindset from selling just signs. How can the book help sign designers develop that?
It’s important to move away from a commodity-based mentality. A commodity is a product that is seen as essentially the same no matter who produces it, like aluminum sheet or printing or plywood. If you sell the same thing as everyone else, then the consumer’s choice always revolves around price. But what happens when what you deliver is different than what everyone else provides? What happens if they can’t go down the road and get the same thing? The relationship is immediately put on different footing. Now you control the conversation, and it’s not revolving around price. They want you to do the job, and they can’t get the same thing elsewhere. It’s a whole different mentality for the client. Getting to that point involves hard work and making sure that the work you put out there is great. And it involves marketing, marketing and more marketing—about your business and strategic advantages. And the marketing needs to be framed in the right context so that there’s a perceived value in your services. Most sign companies make the mistake of marketing their capabilities around what they produce. The message shouldn’t be “We make great signs (or truck wraps, or whatever).” The message is “We make signs and truck wraps that generate more revenue for our clients, and our designs help them to grow their business.” That’s one of the marketing points you need to make.

The case histories in the book really drive home how branding works. The results are pretty impressive. Do you find that clients tell other businesspeople how well their brand is working?
Great branding makes your clients your biggest cheerleaders, and they talk an awful lot. Continue to seek metrics, which are measurable results, of your success for them. For example, in the last article we had a metric that illustrated that our truck wrap design resulted in an 865% increase in leads for the client. This helps them understand the true ROI, return on investment, on your service.

Why is branding now so critical to small businesses—like contractors and cleaning services and lawn maintenance companies?
I think it’s always been important, but some of the mediums that are so important to small businesses perhaps are now becoming more integral in their marketing campaigns. Take the service sector, for example. More and more heating and air contractors are now going with full truck wraps. Unfortunately, nearly every truck wrap on the road is a waste of their money. So we find more and more clients seeking us out because we approach that line of work differently. We make sure the brand is the most important component. Additionally, smart businesses understand the value of their brand. One point made in the book, is that in my estimation, 95% of all small businesses have a poor brand. This is great news for a business owner that wants to stand out. It’s easy to stand out when so much out there is so bad. It’s almost too easy, when it’s done right. As Don Draper in Mad Men said, “One wants to be the needle, not the haystack.”

If they want to take this approach, where’s the best place for a sign person to start?
With their own branding. This may seem obvious, but you can’t craft a marketing message around branding being important when your own branding illustrates it’s not. In my book, I call this “fanatical branding,” because every business needs to be fanatical about controlling every possible touch point a customer might have with your brand. This helps establish a brand promise, which is a level of expected service the customer might assume they’d receive from you. This brand promise is the culmination of many things, including logo, website, truck wrap, business cards, uniforms, stationery.

So the strategies you outline in the book work as well for sign companies as they do for their clients?
Exactly. But one could argue for those in a visual business like sign companies, it’s even more critical—because how their brand is perceived sets the tone for the customer experience.

What if a sign person doesn’t have the skills to do this work? How does he start learning and developing them?
Study everything you can on it. Observe what makes designs and brands effective, and the strategies behind them. Or, hire someone who has the skills. It’s smart to hire and surround yourself with people who are better than yourself at different skills.

How long does it take to develop a market for this work?
Once your own branding is integrated cohesively, then it’s much easier to develop the market. Work on building up your portfolio with examples and case studies which illustrate effective brand integration on different signage. Include quotes from clients which speak to the results of your efforts. Then if a potential client visits your site, they can identify with someone just like them and their business, and see actual results of a brand implemented.

The contents in this article originally appeared in Sign Craft Magazine, a magazine that provides straightforward, important information to its audience members. Sign Craft’s audience consists of sign makers around the world that count on the information in these articles to succeed in the competitive, always-changing industry of sign making.

When it comes to succeeding in today’s fast-paced world of digital marketing, start by cleaning up your marketing toolkit.

This complete guide to cleaning up your marketing toolkit by Graphic D-Signs and Hubspot is available to download for free.

If your marketing strategy isn’t delivering the success you’re looking for, it may be time to reconsider what you’re spending your time and budget on.

In today’s fast-paced digital marketing world, marketers’ lives have become theoretically easier. With all its technological advancements and iterative improvements, it has, in reality, made marketers’ feel more overwhelmed as they feel the need to keep up with all the new trends being released.

It seems that each week, there’s something new that’s created for small businesses to better optimize their marketing efforts. Marketers feel that if they don’t keep up with these new trends, they will fall behind in the digital marketing world and, in turn, be unsuccessful. However, most of the new stuff that gets introduced into the market is outdated, or worse, was never a good use of your time and budget to begin with.

So how do you clean up your marketing toolkit to become a more efficient marketer? Start by cutting items from your marketing plan that are no longer working for your business, such as publishing multiple blog posts a day or developing that mobile application you’re spending too much time on. Instead, optimize your blog posts with information that your customers will really care about and focus your time and budget on a responsive web design rather than a mobile application.

By reading our ebook, you’ll discover:

Mobile marketing vs. mobile application. Why one is better than the other.

How to better optimize the social media channels that are driving success for your business.

Which metrics you should be monitoring.

Why more blogging doesn’t necessarily mean better blogging.

How cutting down your press releases and increasing your blog posts can help you attract valuable readers and links.

Now is the best time to look at your marketing activities and evaluate what’s working for you, and what isn’t. Cutting some of the ineffective tactics listed in our ebook will give you the necessary bandwidth to pursue new marketing strategies. The best thing you can do for your small business’ marketing is to constantly evaluate your efforts to get the most out of your time and budget.

It’s time to crack open an all-too-often abused buzzword in the marketing world: synergy.

Although it sounds great on paper, synergy is often misappropriately used in business. It’s a promise that’s seldom achieved. Properly defined, “synergy” is the creation of something greater by the joining of two different entities. It’s not assembling a sandwich, it’s baking a cake. It is, in effect, 1+1=3.

There is always talk of creating synergy when two companies come together or when one enlists the service of another. It is assumed that an exchange of funds and resources should automatically equate to a greater product in the end. The focus remains on greater productivity, impact, and overall progress. However, a roadblock’s worth of obstacles often arise, creating a situation that’s anything but synergistic.

Roadblocks to Synergy

A mismatch of company cultures, warring business philosophies, and a stymied IT system matchup are just a few areas that can cripple any success that joining together might bring. On top of this lies the overarching affinity for some employees to not break from routine. They ask ‘why change now when we had such a good thing going?’

Change is good, but synergy is better. Achieving synergy is a frequent target of the smart business owner, forever seeking to raise the bar. Becoming a smart business owner requires the realization that one cannot do everything by oneself, and out of that comes delegation. And from delegation, comes collaboration, which leads to synergy. But somewhere along this line, growth can be stunted.

Bottlenecks, micromanagement and false expectations arise when collaboration is absent from the process. Without a fluid operation, the process will always remain at a stagnant 1+1=2. One will give, the other will receive, and the cycle will simply continue without innovation. Things can be executed flawlessly on one end and still fall short. This happens frequently during the customer experience, ultimately breeding misgivings about the business and its integrity.

Breaking free of this stagnant, uncollaborative situation and attaining synergy takes a few things, but businesses that devote resources to doing so will surely win the day. The first step is aligning sales and marketing teams.

Creating an Environment for Synergy

To properly align sales and marketing teams in a way that creates an environment for synergy to occur, specific expectations must be set in the following areas:

Sales Goals - These goals drive the business. Make sure appropriate standards are set that account for best-case scenarios and worst-case markets. Of course, no one can know the future, but knowledge about a market’s history can provide a greater understanding of the pulse of that industry. From this, businesses can establish a strong position to make estimates and set sales standards.

Sales Team – Once the proper framework is in place for a money-making machine, a business must establish a task force ready to bring in revenue. Who will be recruited? How will recruitment occur? How will team members be evaluated? How will the team be motivated? Deal closers need to close, and to help them in this mission, a company needs to give them tools.

Marketing Fuel – Credibility breeds assurance, which breeds sales. No one buys candy from the sketchy van in the back alley. Without a proper business presence, a company looks more like a creepy candy truck than a tricked-out candy store. No one is going to want to hear that company’s story because they have already written it off as unworthy of business. Getting sales will be an uphill battle. If this is the case for your business, work on your presentation. Provide other areas of the credibility scale, and potential customers will assume the best. Give them a strong reason to feel your business is credible, and then go ahead and make good on that promise.

Synergy is that icing-on-top extra that only comes about when the right factors are in place. Deliver the service expected to a customer, but add an extra bonus afterwards. Do this enough times and it will result in loyalty, advocacy, and a residual pool of repeat buyers. The same can be said for a team’s sales performance, client meetings, marketing events, and an in-house philosophy on employee development. Determine what is sufficient, and make a point to deliver above and beyond that expectation.

Define, deliver, and do a little more each day in every business interaction. Synergy will be guaranteed.

When it comes to generating more leads and business, effective calls-to-action can be the key to success.

If your website isn’t delivering the volume of leads you’d like, it may be a case of a clogged or leaky conversion funnel. The remedy? Effective calls-to-action that compel users to take action and progress down the path to becoming a customer.

Calls-to-action are what drives success in today’s digital marketing economy. The world of online content has amplified the human inclination to shift our attention to new and unanticipated directions. One click is all it takes to jump from one topic to another, prompting your mind to roam in a completely different context than originally intended. And guess what? Everyone — publishers and media outlets, businesses and non-profit organizations, entertainers and bloggers—is competing to get your attention and click.

This comprehensive guide to developing calls-to-action by HubSpot and Graphic D-Signs is available to download for free.

As a marketer or business owner, you need to learn to survive in this attention economy. Calls-to-action are the tools to make this happen. They have the power to grab people’s attention and direct it to new topics. They are everywhere you go.

Download our free step-by-step guide to learn key techniques to improve your calls-to-action and optimize them for maximum conversions. Calls-to-action are one of the cornerstones of lead generation, and as a business owner or marketer, you must master this step to ensure successful digital marketing campaigns.

By reading our ebook, you’ll learn how to:

Design Compelling Calls-to-Action

Write Call-to-Action Copy that Gets Visitors Clicking

Optimize Your Calls-to-Action through A/B Testing

Calls-to-action can make your digital marketing campaign an overwhelming success, or cause it to fall flat. That is where this definitive guide will make your job a whole lot easier, and ensure future success. Our Complete Guide to Creating, Designing & Executing Calls-to-Action provides every step you need to turn your next digital marketing campaign into a long-term success.

If you can’t identify what’s inherently wrong with this opinion on SEO, I urge you to bookmark this page, print it and email it to yourself. Do whatever it takes to read this article through – your future digital success hinges on it.

To understand what’s wrong with that statement, consider this: best-in-class search engine optimizers approach every project with the goal of increasing a website’s qualified leads, conversions and ultimately, revenue. Because if the SEO tactics performed don’t bring in more revenue for a business, then they weren’t worth the money or effort to do in the first place.

“Search engine optimization is about putting your site’s best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines, but your ultimate consumers are your users, not search engines.”

To increase revenue, SEO strategies should be based on the desired experience of a target end user, not search engines. This philosophy is even backed up by Google:

“Search engine optimization is about putting your site’s best foot forward when it comes to visibility in search engines, but your ultimate consumers are your users, not search engines.”

Google takes this stance very seriously. Not only does it reduce search engine rank for all sites that clearly optimize for search engines and not end users, but also penalizes specific violators manually. This infamous event against a major retail chain is a warning sign of what can happen when an SEO campaign blatantly violates guidelines.

If a site hasn’t been hit yet, it is no guarantee of safety. Google algorithm updates called Panda (which targets sites with content generated for search engines, not users) and Penguin (which focuses on sites with backlinks created to increase search engine rank, not relevancy for users) are continually updated and refined, expanding reach and accuracy each time. These updates shook the SEO world when they initially rolled out, and fundamentally changed the SEO game. This is also why it’s said that SEO is no longer easy or quick.

So if Google is the ultimate focus for your SEO tactics, change your perspective. Your performance expectations will be unrealistic, and it is only a matter of time before your site is negatively hit with a Google algorithm update.

Unfortunately, this is quite common — there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small businesses that measure SEO efforts only by their appearance on the first page of Google and their keyword rank.

But why does this happen? Tracking and analyzing SEO performance – and better yet, return-on-investment – is not clear-cut or easy, there is no cookie-cutter solution, and generally isn’t a focus for SEOs (at least, not with any I worked with before becoming one myself). Cookie-cutter SEO services and amateur optimizers might show increases in keyword rank, and high level stats such as gains in overall site traffic and organic search traffic, but often, they fail to illustrate how the tactics directly correlate to an increase in converted leads, paying customers or revenue.

This results in business owners who do not know how to properly measure the success of an SEO effort. Fortunately, if you’ve read this article to this point, you can count yourself among the group of well-informed business owners. And keep reading, as you’ll learn not only what to measure to gauge search engine optimization, but how to measure the results of an SEO effort, and why.

So to get started, here are answers to some common performance and analytics-based questions from small business owners. These answers offer a chance to build an accurate foundation of SEO knowledge, upon which we will build in future posts. And if you have questions about SEO for small business that you’d like answered in a future post, feel free to add them in the comments, or email me at Mehgan@graphicd-signs.com.

1. How and what should I track to understand an SEO campaign’s performance?

The first step in SEO campaign tracking is actually having the ability to track metrics.

The first step in SEO campaign tracking is actually having the ability to track metrics, which is done through an analytics program installed on a website. Google Analytics is a free option that provides great functionality and a slew of useful features for SEO performance tracking. Once it is installed and reporting data, the following metrics should be monitored during an SEO program to evaluate performance:

Organic Search Engine Sessions

From a high level, the first thing to monitor is the website’s number of sessions that originate from organic search engines. These are the users who are coming into a site by clicking a listing on search engine results pages (SERPs) on Google, Bing and others. If this number is increasing over time during the SEO project, it’s a positive initial sign that the campaign is proving beneficial. (Note that this is counted separately from sessions that are the result of clicks on paid search placements through Google Adwords or other pay-per-click tools.)

A good rule of thumb is to measure the number of sessions from organic search that occurred over the past 30 days of the SEO program and compare that to the 30 days before the SEO project started, as well as the comparable 30-day period from a year ago.

New Users

Another high-level metric to watch is the number of new users coming to a site via search engines during an SEO campaign. If the program is working well, a good percentage of users will visit the site who are new (having never visited before). Consider this metric as the number of newly discovered potential customers who now have the opportunity to be converted into paying customers.

Like organic search engine sessions, look at the change in the percentage of new users coming to a site over the past 30 days of the program and compare that to the 30 days before the SEO project started, as well as the comparable 30-day period from a year ago.

Bounce Rate

As an SEO campaign progresses, be mindful of the site’s bounce rate, which is the percentage of users who exit a site after viewing only one page. If the SEO plan is worth its salt, the site’s overall bounce rate, as well as the bounce rate for users who come from organic search, should remain steady or ideally, decrease over time. Take the same 30-day measurements and comparisons as previously stated to determine performance.

Average Session Duration

Formerly known as Average Time on Site in Google Analytics, this metric shows how much time users are spending on a site. Similar to the effects on bounce rate, a well-rounded SEO program will positively influence this metric over time. Again, the 30-day snapshot and comparisons detailed above will show whether or not the SEO project is positively performing.

The above metrics are available out-of-the-box for Google Analytics. These provide a good high-level analysis of an SEO campaign’s performance. But to go deeper and prove return-on-investment, we need to implement some custom tracking options to be able to pinpoint increases in leads, conversions and revenue. Here’s an explanation of these advanced metrics, as available in Google Analytics and other tracking tools:

Events & Goals

Think of events as occasions when a user completes any desired action on a website, such as making a purchase. Performance of an individual event is tracked by creating a goal for it in Google Analytics. In turn, goals can be assigned a monetary value to track revenue, as well as be segmented by traffic source. Common events and goals are:

Newsletter signups

Contact form submissions

Clicking a Call-to-Action button or link

Resource downloads, such as a whitepaper, ebook or other informational asset.

Ecommerce purchases

Through events and goals, it is easy to calculate the number of goal completions that came from organic search engines during an SEO program, and make comparisons to both the time before the project was undertaken, as well as the same period a year ago.

Making comparisons for goal performance is absolutely crucial – and perhaps the most important element – for measuring the value of an SEO campaign. Without it, there is no way to tell if the additional search traffic coming to a site is engaging in the desired actions on the site, and in turn, generating additional revenue.

It is important to note that when it comes to evaluating SEO performance, events and goal tracking should be established well before the start of a project, to allow for proper comparisons. Informed decisions on SEO program performance can only be made when there is accurate and established data on which to rely.

Conversions

This is the percentage of website visitors who complete a goal or event on a site, and this metric can be found in the goals section of Google Analytics. The process of a user completing a goal or event is called converting. During a successful SEO project, the total conversion rate for a website’s goals should increase. More importantly, the conversion rate should increase for users who visit the site via organic search engines. Again, to most accurately gauge SEO campaign performance, the current conversion rate should be compared to that of the time period before the program began, as well as a year ago.

Leads

Leads are known individuals who convert on a website through a form-based event or goal, and are potential customers for a business. Most website content management systems (CMS), including WordPress, offer plugins that make form creation and lead management simple. CRMs and even email databases integrated into a website can also be an indicator of lead volume. During an SEO campaign, the overall number of new leads coming from a website should increase. And when goal tracking is implemented in the site’s analytics, it can be determined whether or not a lead increase is the result of the SEO effort, or another source.

If for some reason it is not possible to implement events or goal tracking in the website analytics tool, the form data itself can serve as a performance indicator for conversions and leads in a pinch.

To calculate the conversion rate for a form, divide the total number of form completions over a given time period by the number of users who came to the site during that same period. For example:

100 form completions / 1,000 users = 10% conversion rate

Unfortunately, this method does not allow for segmenting conversion rate by traffic source, therefore it is not possible to determine if the SEO campaign is impacting conversions, or if it is the result of another effort.

2. How do I know if an SEO campaign is working?

For all of the above metrics, measure performance over the past 30 days in the website analytics tool, making sure to filter the data to show only traffic coming in from organic search engines. This will give an indicator of the current results. Then, using the website analytics tool’s comparison feature (in Google Analytics, it is located within the date range selector), measure these figures against the 30 days before the SEO program began. This will show a percentage change for each of the metrics. Lastly, to account for seasonal differences, review the current 30-day results with the comparable period from a year ago.

The fact is – and this might be one of the biggest misconceptions of the SEO industry – that all SEOs, myself included, don’t know how our tactics will perform for a site until they are complete.

In all these instances, a percentage increase indicates that the SEO program is having a positive impact. The degree of the increase, however, really depends on the tactics employed and the weight each element has when it comes to search engine ranking factors. Business owners shouldn’t expect double digit increases from simple strategies such as updating page titles and meta descriptions (though it can happen). Similarly, a single digit increase after optimizing an entire site’s content for target keywords or engaging in a comprehensive content marketing campaign might be a sign that the effort was not properly executed.

In reality, there is no way to accurately predict or judge how much of an increase or impact any SEO strategy will have on a site’s performance. There are too many factors at play, including the efforts of the competition or an unexpected algorithm change, both of which can drastically affect the performance of a campaign. If a search engine optimizer guarantees or claims that a program will provide a specific range of performance increases, tread lightly. Every SEO program and the resulting performance is highly dependent on the tactics, market and website itself.

The fact is – and this might be one of the biggest misconceptions of the SEO industry – that all SEOs, myself included, don’t know how our tactics will perform for a site until they are complete. We have guidelines and best practices from search engines and industry experts, and tactics that have worked in the past. This information provides us with a secure sense that the plan we put together will work for a site. But calculating how much is just not possible.

This is perhaps the primary reason why SEO should be an ongoing maintenance effort for any website. It allows SEOs to test tactics, evaluate performance, try again, change direction, re-evaluate and essentially, maximize a site’s optimization level to the fullest degree. By doing this, a business can expect to get the best conversion rate, most leads and largest return on investment possible.

Unfortunately, when business owners have been turned off of SEO by programs that overpromised and under delivered, failed to set expectations, or did not illustrate how the investment ties back to revenue, it creates an environment of bare-bones budgets and one-and-done optimizations. Most of the time, reaching leads and revenue goals are extremely difficult in these scenarios. Sometimes business owners need to trust their vendors to achieve mutually agreed upon goals, and make an ongoing investment in the future of their digital business.

3. Speaking of goals, what should my SEO goals be?

As discussed above, SEO goals should be tied to increases in leads and conversions, as this will ultimately increase revenue. Best-in-class SEOs will discuss goals before a program is developed, to ensure that a program delivers on mutually agreed upon expectations.

Keep in mind, however, that a business owner’s own expectations might not be realistic based on the current website, conversion rates and budget.

For instance, a client recently presented the goal of having 100 additional people come to the site every day, with 10 of those new users becoming customers. What seemed to be a modest enough goal, in reality, was anything but. Given the site’s current lead conversion rate of 2 percent, and a close rate of 30 percent, the numbers couldn’t work.

Here’s what reality looked like to deliver those 10 new customers to the site:

In this scenario, the client actually needed more than 16 times the amount of new traffic than originally anticipated. This is why the expectation wasn’t realistic – 100 additional visits a day would have never delivered the amount of customers needed. Additionally, the investment needed to increase SEO to deliver 100 more visits a day versus 1,650 is wildly different.

A best-in-class SEO will use a site’s current performance to estimate what is needed to meet these goals, determine if that is realistic, set expectations with the client, and finally, develop a program. Keep in mind that depending on the goals, the program may expand beyond SEO alone to inbound marketing, social media, email marketing and others. When custom programs such as these are created to reach a client’s goals, each element contributes to the overall program. Because of this, if some of the recommendations aren’t utilized, it can compromise the ability of the program to achieve the stated goals.

4. When should I begin seeing results?

Another common misconception with SEO is that the results can be seen overnight. The Internet is a big place, and changes take time to discover and fully play out. When new sites launch, it can take four or more weeks for the search engines to index a site on their own. Similarly, when large SEO programs are conducted, seeing results can take some time – even six months or more after a program begins.

The Internet is a big place, and changes take time to discover and fully play out.

This is because for many of today’s SEO programs, tactics go beyond code updates and content optimization, to blogging, content marketing, social media and more. These digital marketing platforms take time to build up an engaged audience that is willing to read a brand’s content and share it amongst their network. The good news is that once the sharing and goodwill begins on these networks, oftentimes it creates a rapid road to success – business owners have to be willing to wait it out, occasionally for months, and let the optimizer experiment a few times to discover the formula that works for that business.

5. I really do care about keyword rank. How can I tell if that’s improved?

OK, I know I said at the start of this article that caring about keyword rank on search engines was an antiquated view of SEO and a dangerous path to a Google penalty. I hope, in reading this article through, that you now appreciate the fact that there’s a lot more to SEO goals than placement on search engine result pages.

And because we’re all on the same page now when it comes to SEO goals, I’ll tell you this: keyword performance does matter, as it can be a leading indicator of how the SEO campaign will perform over time.

For those interested in understanding where a site ranks for various target keywords, there are a few options. The first is Google Webmaster Tools, which shows some of the keywords that send traffic to a site, along with its average placement within the SERPs over a period of time. It’s a good, free tool, however it doesn’t allow for convenient historical tracking, or adding custom keywords.

That is where paid tools come in. Moz is a powerful SEO tool allows business owners to monitor keyword performance over time, and compare a site against competitors, along with the ability to track a slew of other SEO data points.

Before monitoring keywords in any tool, though, it is advisable to make sure business owners track the proper keywords that consumers actually use when searching. Keyword popularity in a designated geographic area can be measured using the keyword planner tool in Google Adwords. Additionally, it provides related keyword ideas that offer alternatives for additional tracking.

There are many logo design styles that work for different small business types. In my first two logo design books, I break up these logo types into what I term “models.” The theory is that nearly every logo can be categorized by a model, or “formula.” Sometimes understanding these models and their advantages/disadvantages helps you narrow down options and partner with your design team to build an effective small business brand.

The vast majority of small business brands are usually comprised of two primary elements: the typographic elements and the graphical or iconic element. Together, they form the basic structure for most logo designs.

Iconic/Symbolic: Traditional Icon Left

Iconic/Symbolic: Traditional Icon Left

One of the most common logo design models utilizes a standard icon on the left with typography to the right. The approach is typical of larger companies, accountants, consultants, etc., because it is more traditional. Over the last several years, a trend has developed to place the icon to the right (i.e. Walmart). Still, the basic formula is the same. Generally, the icon is approximately the same height or larger than the name of the company and secondary copy. From a small business perspective, unless you fall into one of the above-mentioned categories, I am not be a huge fan of this format, only because it is very traditional. That being said, we have successfully deployed this model for many logos in various sectors.

Iconic/Symbolic: Symmetrical Model

Iconic/Symbolic: Symmetrical Model

For these logos, the primary characteristic lies in the symmetry and balance. Because they tend to require more vertical space than other logo design models, they do not always work well for all applications (top of a website, or various signage applications). Sometimes you can move the icon placement to the left and create an alternate horizontal version of the logo while still maintaining the brand identity.

Logotype/Wordmark

Logotype/Wordmark

For this logo model, a typographical treatment is deployed in such a manner that it becomes unique enough to stand on its own. Usually, the typography relies little on other components to complete the logo. Often, this is used with hand-drawn scripts that are not based off of existing typefaces, making its application unique to one business. Sometimes a simple icon or graphic is deployed in conjunction with custom typography. You can also use a heavily modified version of an existing type to create a unique logotype.

Panel Based Logos

Panel-Based Logo Model

These logos are contained in a single panel or shape, and each element is connected. The unique panel shape helps to make these especially memorable. They also tend to be less flexible than other logo formats, since the components are consistently housed in one panel. When choosing a shape to house the graphics, try to avoid obvious shapes, such as diamonds or circles, to contain the typographical elements. Instead, use primary copy to “break out” of the standard shapes, or wrap your panel around the copy and build a shape from there.

Hybrids/Combination Marks

Hybrids/Combination Marks

Of course, not every logo can fit into one of these pre-determined models. Some combine various characteristics of several aforementioned models. They may use panel integrated, but not fully. Or perhaps they are not centered or totally symmetrical. I like these types of logos for small businesses because they’re a bit atypical.

In today’s fast-paced world of technology, when it comes to business, you’re either growing or failing. Companies that embrace the innovative culture will be the ones that survive in our technology-filled society. To ensure the long-term survival of your company, innovation needs to be a part of your everyday business processes and segments.

Lucky for you, building a company that is rooted in innovation doesn’t have to happen overnight. Here’s a step-by-step guide to becoming innovative:

Step 1: Choose Success.

Like with other things in life, the willingness to change needs to happen within. Change any thoughts of complacency you may have and replace them with a new determination – to beat your competitors. This doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of any methods you used to use to run your business, but it does mean you must accept change, learn new methods, and master new business tools.

In order to succeed, you must come to the realization that running a business in today’s society has changed. Buyer decisions are now made at a quicker rate than ever before, and often, only because a certain brand comes to mind first. Earning a top of mind awareness spot with your customers requires a new approach, focused on wanting to stand out from your competitors.

Step 2: Leverage Your Biggest Asset.

In order to be innovative, the next step is to leverage all your assets. Often times, the most underutilized asset to a business is not so obvious. It’s your brand – the unique combination of visuals that create awareness and an emotional connection to your company. If your brand isn’t contributing to sales, or even worse, if it’s hurting your business, then it’s time for you to rethink your brand development strategy.

We’ve been able to witness first-hand the tremendous impact of brand development, having worked with many HVAC and service-industry clients. Often times, it raises the bar for both their employees and their service area customers. The business as a whole feels a sense of pride and appreciation for the service they can deliver to their customers, and their customers have greater confidence in the services and greater recognition of the business.

The moment your brand becomes fully utilized, new opportunities will begin to arise. Untapped customers begin contacting you and annual revenue begins to increase. All of this exciting, new change occurs as a domino effect. However, none of this would have occurred without the initial will to change towards being an innovative business.

Step 3: Cover All Bases.

When it comes to the innovation of your brand, the foundation of your efforts should be to ensure that every touch point is a proper execution of your brand. These include but are not limited to:

Website

Social Media

Vehicle Wraps

Stationery

Print Brochure

Business Cards

Storefront Design

Keep in mind that your goal is to claim ownership in every place your brand appears. Ensuring that your solutions are integrated is the key to gaining the most from your marketing budget.

An important step is to be sure that you assess, for yourself, which marketing channels are the most important for your business and use that as your starting point. For many clients, it’s unreasonable to say that every touch point can be switched at the blink-of-an-eye for the new branding. As an agency, we focus first on redeveloping the logo, since it serves as the fundamental component of the brand. From then on out, we are able to proceed to various projects, such as website design and vehicle design, without losing brand quality.

Step 4: Think Big.

In preparation for the future, you must embrace change and the impending learning curve. Think outside of the box and start with minor changes to your business.

Maybe there’s a sponsored halftime giveaway at a football game, as Harrell King Heating (Bainbridge, Georgia) does, or maybe your service trips include a free homemade cookie as Main Street Heating & Cooling (Salt Lake City, Utah) utilizes. Reflect on your own market and brand, and figure out a new way to surprise customers and bring them into a positive brand connection. Remember: your imagination is the only thing limiting your creativity.

Anticipate any future needs of your customers and think about how you can additionally service them, in order for your business to branch out. Once customers hear word of your additional service offerings, they will immediately associate those services as positive extensions of your brand.

The easier it is for you to operate your everyday business, the larger the capacity for your team to serve the community. To do this, make sure to leverage the power of your business network and constantly research operational innovations that will help your business run smoothly.

Innovation isn’t an annual occasion or a one-time event. Instead, it’s a commitment to doing better than what was done the day before. Embrace this challenge. Commit to changing for the better of your business, and prepare to leave your competitors in the dust.

The celebrated tech startups and multi-million dollar investments we read about aren’t because of a few quick business sprints. Instead, they are all the result of strong, concerted efforts of strength and discipline — the type only seen in endurance sports.

As a business owner and cycling enthusiast, I’ve experienced firsthand just how similar the two are. Both demand time, precision and calculated risk. Excelling for a few minutes is easy, the trick is making it last.

So how do you build business endurance? Here are the areas on which to focus:

Preparation

Races, games and contests — they are all won by the best-prepared team. To go the distance takes disciplined prep time — for weeks or even years before the main event.

Start with the bare essentials. Knowing your market segment, along with the value you can add and the scope of each project, needs to become second nature.

As your organization grows, there needs to be an action plan for scaling and quality control. Ensuring that quality isn’t lost in the mix will be exponentially easier if outlined standards are put in place ahead of time, and of course, good training.

Surround yourself with support

Expanding your endurance is only possible when you continually push the limitations of your stamina. Often there’s a fine line between giving a reserved effort and going overboard. The only way to continually hit that sweet spot is with a cohesive team moving toward a common goal.

Similar to sports, a skilled team with strengths outside your own is how you will push through boundaries and get past obstacles. When you’re crushing it, they’re right there with you. When motivation wavers, just being in your team’s presence can be enough to inspire you. Feed off that energy, add to it and enjoy accomplishments together.

Focus on milestones, not finish lines

The mental fortitude needed to accomplish a long trek such as a business venture is fierce. Up ahead there’s criticism, mistakes and the constant need to remain alert. At times it might seem as if you’re simply spinning your wheels. It can be a bit disheartening.

Keep a record as you go to realize the true effort being put in.

Fight off this negative haze by celebrating milestones. Keep a record as you go to realize the true effort being put in.

I lasted just three laps before the referee pulled me out during my very first race. During the next, I lasted only a few more laps before getting dropped. It was during the third that I finally made it across the finish, but each race was a crucial step.

Refuel frequently

To keep moving and improving, you have to feed the need. Caffeine-induced productivity highs are all well and good, but think about the long haul. In business and in sport, being proactive about nourishment, reenergizing and refueling is always rewarded sevenfold.

It’s up to you to make the most out of your breaks from business. Have lunch with colleagues, keep a healthy diet and don’t spend all day behind a desk. Ironically, sometimes working outside the office is more important (and productive) than working in it.

The flip side of refueling is getting rest. Try taking a new approach and incorporate active rest to progress your endurance. Instead of either taking it easy or going all out, endurance athletes find a way to move forward even while recovering. Mix in some lower focus tasks to your day to make your productivity last.

Avoid any type of crash by keeping a mindful cadence. You are your best judge of fatigue, so be honest before your body or mind forces you to be honest.

Constant fine tuning

Competition is where the magic happens. Folks like billionaire businessman Mark Cuban agree that business is a sport where you are constantly competing. If not for the rights to a project or a new client, then it’s for recognition within your industry.

Taking part in this competition is what keeps the sport interesting and engaging. Our agency frequently submits to new and exciting design competitions with the goal of winning in mind. Even when we lose, the focus remains that today’s work is not good enough for tomorrow.

To stay competitive, constant fine tuning of your craft is required.

To stay competitive, constant fine tuning of your craft is required. Day in and day out, the glory will be in the journey, not the seconds spent on a podium.

Keep what’s important at the helm. Stay humble through it all. And rise to the challenge that every new day presents, if you want true lasting success.